


Near Life Experience

by TrueIllusion



Series: Stories from the "Changed" Verse [4]
Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, POV Original Character, Physical Disability, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-03-17 05:46:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 17,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18959092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrueIllusion/pseuds/TrueIllusion
Summary: I was in Atlanta when I first started noticing the strange, intermittent numbness and tingling in the fingers of my right hand. I was finishing up some paperwork, and I was having a hard time holding onto the pen, though at the time I thought it was just because I couldn’t feel my fingers in the way that I was used to. I knew I’d been pushing myself too hard, spending too much time working on my laptop and not enough time doing yoga, so I thought it was probably just stress. I needed a break, although I wasn’t sure when I was going to get one, because I was only scheduled to have two days at home before I had to leave again to travel to Dallas.***Rob has a health scare that leads him to reevaluate his life. Brian helps support him along the way.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title borrowed from a Lifehouse song of the same name. Thanks to SandiD and PrettyTheWorld, as always, for their help in making this story the best it could be!

I used to love my job.

I loved this company when I first started with them in Chicago, because no one batted an eyelash at my wheelchair or my legs, and no one questioned my abilities because of them, because they made products to help people with disabilities. I needed that, back then, because I’d still been struggling to accept myself and how my entire life had been changed by a freak accident that could have been prevented had I not followed my friends and jumped off that cliff into the water below.

I’d applied for the job and gone to the interview mostly because my mother forced me to, but in the end, it all worked out. She seemed to know all along that it would. Call it mother’s intuition, I guess, or maybe she just had a hell of a lot more faith in me than I had in myself.

I started off answering phones in a cubicle in a high-rise near downtown -- processing order forms and maintaining databases of the visits our sales reps made. But honestly, I didn’t care what I was doing -- the key was that I was doing _something_. I wasn’t just lying in bed in my parents’ house, moping and feeling sorry for myself. I’d already done that for the better part of three years, complete with a scar on my ass to prove it -- thanks to a pressure sore that had resulted from not taking care of myself the way I should have been.

When I got that job, though, something shifted inside of me. Suddenly, I felt like I could do things -- the normal things everybody else did. I _wanted_ to do things. To try to have a life. I went out for drinks after work with my coworkers sometimes, and I even made a few friends. I started to see that maybe my life wasn’t ruined after all -- it was just different.

Slowly, my life started to resemble more of what I’d originally anticipated the day I’d walked across the stage to receive my bachelor’s degree in business management at the University of Illinois. I had a full-time job, I was making good money, and soon I was moving out of my parents’ house and into an apartment of my very own. I got my driver’s license and a car with hand controls, and for the first time since my accident, I felt like I was regaining my independence. I had started to view my wheelchair as my freedom, rather than something holding me down, and I was moving on with my life. All because I’d gotten the job.

But there were still ghosts of my past haunting me any time I went somewhere in my hometown. People who remembered me from the high school baseball team who won the state championship my senior year, or from the summer between seventh and eighth grade when I was a part of a team that competed in the Little League World Series. I was sort of low-key famous in Downers Grove, which meant that it seemed like everyone in town knew about my accident, and everyone in town looked at me with those sad, pitying eyes and told me how sorry they were about what had happened to me, like it was somehow their fault. Worst of all, most of the people who had once called themselves my friends avoided eye contact with me when they saw me out somewhere. I guess I made them feel uncomfortable, but really, no one was more uncomfortable than me.

I’d stayed in my hometown (even though my commute took forever) because, quite frankly, I still needed help sometimes and being close to my parents was a comfort. But I absolutely hated being reminded at every turn just how tragic what had happened to me was, mostly because I didn’t feel like it was tragic -- I felt like I’d done it to myself. But what was done, was done, and I had to live with it. I didn’t need to be reminded of it all the time. I was well aware -- I was the one sitting in the wheelchair, who couldn’t feel a damn thing below his chest. What I needed was to get away, but at the time, I didn’t feel like I could.

It took me a long time to truly be okay with who I was, post-accident. But I got there, eventually, and having a job and supporting myself was a key part of it. The more experience I got living on my own, the less I needed my parents around. Still, though, there were people who didn’t seem to want to let me move on from who I’d been before. It was frustrating, and it would take the high I was riding from finally feeling like I was doing something good for myself, and knock me right back down to being referred to as, “Poor Robbie, you heard what happened to him, right?”

The need to get away grew stronger and stronger as the months and years ticked by, until I saw an internal memo about an open position for an associate sales representative in New York. My confidence was shaky, but the lure of moving to a new city -- New York, to boot -- and getting an opportunity to start fresh was strong enough to overcome my doubts. I applied for the position, and I flew to New York for the interview all by myself, which made me proud. Looking back now, with thousands of hours of flying under my belt, it seems like a silly thing to be proud of, but at the time, traveling independently was a huge hurdle for me, and the path to freedom lay just past the fear and uncertainty. I sailed right over it and never looked back.

I got the job, and the next thing I knew I was living in New York City, in a not-so-great apartment in a not-so-great neighborhood, but I didn’t care, because it was mine, and I was really, truly on my own, with no one to depend on but myself. New York brought with it a lot of positive changes in me, and my new position that required me to go out and talk to strangers on a daily basis boosted my confidence in ways I never could have imagined.

But my biggest confidence boost came a few months after I moved, when I met the love of my life by chance at an outdoor cafe when he offered to share his newspaper. We hit it off almost immediately, exchanged phone numbers, and agreed to meet up again sometime. We did, and the rest is history -- somehow sharing a newspaper turned into sharing our lives.

At first, I couldn’t believe he’d be interested in me. He was younger than me -- still in his 20s -- and a very attractive black man with an athletic, muscular body who could probably have any man he wanted. Why would he want to waste his time on me? The only reason I could see was ignorance -- he must not have known what my disability involved. How much effort it would take just to be intimate. But he showed me I was worth the effort -- worthy of much more than I was giving myself credit for -- and less than two years after we met, we were getting married.

Meeting Adam turned out to be yet another step in the process of reclaiming the life I thought I’d lost forever on that hot, summer day in 1993. But if it hadn’t been for my job, I probably never would have been in New York. My job brought me my husband. My job gave me my life back in so many ways.

Adam supported me wholeheartedly when I wanted to go back to school to get my MBA, and celebrated each new promotion with me, all the way up to the position I’m in now -- director of sales, with my private office and a full staff of employees who report to me, and so much business travel that a few of the gate agents at JFK recognize me and know my name.

I still loved my job when I got that promotion. I felt lucky to be able to do something every day that was so rewarding, because, in an indirect way, I was helping people live their best lives. And I felt like I was living my best life, too. I had all my shit together, and life felt pretty damn perfect.

Loving my job made it easy to go to work every day, although I would never refer to myself as a workaholic. Going home to spend as much time as I can with my family at the end of the day is important to me, and so is taking good care of myself.

But for the past several months, all of that has been so much more difficult. I want to keep loving my job, but that’s a tall order when said job is trying to take over the life that it once gave back to you.

It all started when our CEO and two VPs retired at the same time, and rather than promoting from within, the board of directors chose to hire people from outside the company -- people who didn’t know our company culture, and whose ideas about management were completely different from mine and those of the other directors. They cut corners by cutting staff, and those of us who were lucky enough to keep our jobs were also forced to take on additional responsibility.

Now, I’ve been trying hard to keep my work-life balance, but it’s gotten more and more difficult as time has gone on. I’m traveling more than I ever have before, because a couple of the people who worked under me and did a lot of the traveling were among those who got cut. I tried to fight for them, but it was no use -- there was nothing I could do. The travel is wearing me out, and I know it, but again, there’s nothing I can do. I have to try to make the best of it, and keep perspective -- my job is providing my family with health insurance and most of the income that makes it possible for us to have a nice home in a nice neighborhood, eat well, and do the things we want to do. But it’s really hard to keep that perspective when I’m sitting alone in a hotel room in some other city, hundreds of miles away, and I’m missing my husband and our kids.

I was in Atlanta when I first started noticing the strange, intermittent numbness and tingling in the fingers of my right hand. I was finishing up some paperwork, and I was having a hard time holding onto the pen, though at the time I thought it was just because I couldn’t feel my fingers in the way that I was used to. I knew I’d been pushing myself too hard, spending too much time working on my laptop and not enough time doing yoga, so I thought it was probably just stress. I needed a break, although I wasn’t sure when I was going to get one, because I was only scheduled to have two days at home before I had to leave again to travel to Dallas.

I finished the paperwork, though not without some effort, and I wrapped up my day of meetings, then returned to my hotel room and tried to take the break my body seemed to be pleading for. I practiced some yoga, ordered myself a healthy meal via room service, and I spent the rest of the evening in bed, watching television and pushing away intrusive thoughts about the pile of emails that I was sure were stacking up while I tried not to think about work.

I called Adam around 9 p.m., because I was desperate to hear his voice. I missed him so goddamned much, and hearing the girls in the background made me wish that I was there with them, in Brooklyn, instead of all by myself in a hotel room in Georgia.

“I’m sorry,” I told him, because I felt incredibly guilty about the fact that he’d been having to do so much on his own lately without me around to take on my share of the load.

“What for? We’re fine here.” His voice was so gentle and understanding, just like it always was. “We miss you, though.”

“I miss you all too,” I sighed, as I absently rubbed my fingers and thumb against one another and wondered when the sensation was going to come back.

“I know,” Adam said softly. “Don’t feel like you have to apologize though. I know you’d rather be here. Hopefully things will slow down soon.”

God, I hoped so. But I’d seen the calendar, and I’d seen my to-do list, and I’d seen what my inbox looked like earlier that afternoon, and it didn’t look like our wish was going to come true any time soon.

I let him go a few minutes later, because I knew it was time for the girls to start getting ready for bed. I wished I was there with them.

The next night, I was, but I was so damn tired that I could barely keep my eyes open. Adam kept telling me to go to bed, but it was so much harder to watch him pick up my slack in-person that I forced myself to stay awake so I could help him. My fingers still felt strange, pushing me to start doing more things with my left hand, and I suddenly had a much better appreciation for how Justin probably felt most of the time, with his dominant hand partially paralyzed.

Was that what it was? It didn’t seem like it would be, since I didn’t have any other symptoms, and no other conditions that should have led to paralysis in my hands. At least, that was what I told myself. I still don’t know why I wasn’t more concerned about it when I first started noticing it. Why I tried to push the thoughts out of my head, ignore them, and make up reasons for why this was temporary and it would go away soon.

It hasn’t gone away, though. If anything, it’s gotten worse. My fingers are nearly numb most of the time now, and my right hand is noticeably weaker than my left. It’s making it difficult to get work done, because it’s hard to write and hard to type. And it’s starting to affect me at home, too. I love to cook because I find it relaxing, sort of like a moving meditation in a way, but lately it’s gotten frustrating because I’m having a hard time holding onto the knife to chop vegetables, and I’m afraid I’m going to hurt myself.

Adam has seen it too, despite my best efforts to conceal what’s happening. I don’t know why I’ve tried to hide it. Maybe because I know if he notices it, I won’t be able to stick my head quite so far in the sand anymore. I saw the concern in his eyes as he gently took the knife from my hand and finished chopping the vegetables, as he retrieved the pencil I dropped and couldn’t get my fingers around to pick it back up, as he silently picked up even more slack that he shouldn’t have had to.

Two nights ago, he asked me what was going on, as we lay together in bed at the end of another long day. I’d been at work until almost 7 p.m., two hours later than I normally liked to be, but I hadn’t had a choice. Really, I should have stayed longer, but I wasn’t getting much done anymore because I was tired and hungry and distracted. So I went home to my family, and reheated the dinner my husband had made that I should have come home to much earlier in the evening. My fork kept slipping between my fingers, until I gave up and switched to eating with my left hand, which felt strange and awkward, but it was better than catching everyone’s attention with the clatter of the fork on the side of the plate when I dropped it.

“I don’t know,” I said. Because I didn’t. But I couldn’t deny that something was.

“Maybe you should go to the doctor,” he said softly. I felt his fingers tracing a circular pattern across the nape of my neck and the tops of my shoulders, passing over muscles that were knotted with tension, but starting to relax under his touch.

I didn’t really want to go to the doctor, because I was sure it was just stress, but in the end, I agreed to go.

So that’s why we’re here now, in the waiting room at my neurologist’s office, Adam’s fingers woven with mine, our hands sitting atop the armrest of the chair he’s sitting in. Thankfully, he’s holding my left hand, so I can feel his warmth -- his silent support -- as we sit, and wait.

As I wonder what’s about to happen, and what I’m about to find out.


	2. Chapter 2

I’m sitting in my wheelchair in an exam room at the neurologist’s office, trying not to think about work or what’s going on at work while I’ve taken an unexpected afternoon off for this doctor’s appointment. Adam is still holding my hand, and gives me a supportive smile when I look up at him, but I can see the worry in his eyes. I’m worried too. I don’t know why I’m so nervous, but I am.

What could possibly be wrong? There have been a few things I’ve thought about, not the least of which was the possibility of a problem with my spinal fusion, like broken hardware or something shifting and impinging on a nerve. I’m a pretty active guy, so it’s possible, but it doesn’t really make any sense, given the problems I’ve been having. My spinal cord injury is at T4, and my fusion runs from T2 to T6, so there isn’t any hardware in an area that should affect my fingers or my hands.

Maybe it’s a pinched nerve in my arm. Maybe I did something wrong at the gym. Not that I’ve been going there too often lately -- I haven’t had much time. But I’ve tried to go when I can, though now, with this hand issue, it’s just about impossible for me to do the workout I’ve become accustomed to.

The options that would include a problem with my brain, I don’t even want to think about. But that possibility is there as well.

The doctor examines me, talks to me briefly, then sends me for an MRI and a CT scan, which we’d already scheduled ahead of time, given what I was calling about. So that initiates a few more days of waiting and wondering, until the results come in.

Meanwhile, I’m just trying to keep my head above water at work. Thankfully, I don’t have to get on any planes this week. It’s just a “quiet” week at the office, whatever that means at this point. I try to get out of the office whenever I can and go to a nearby coffee shop, so I can people watch while I work. But I’m distracted -- I can’t really focus on the people around me or my work, because my brain is too busy thinking about the phone call I should be getting any day now to let me know what’s wrong with me, so we can hopefully fix it.

I meet Brian for lunch one day, but I’m distracted there too, and he notices it right away.

“Hey,” he says. “What’s up with you?”

“Nothing,” I say, and I can hear in my voice how exhausted I sound, despite my best efforts to appear normal. “I’m just really tired. I’ve got a lot going on at work.”

“You sound like you need a vacation.”

“I wish I could take one. But I can’t. There’s no one who can cover for me, and I’ve got travel scheduled for every week next month.” My hand trembles a little as I hold my water glass. I can feel the chill of the ice and the wetness of the condensation against my fingers though, which to me is a good thing, because that’s more than I could feel yesterday. I’ll take any sort of improvement I can get, because that lends credence to my theory -- or my insistence, rather -- that this is nothing. That everything is fine, and it’ll resolve on its own just as soon as I’m able to catch my breath, whenever the hell that is.

“What was that you were telling me a couple of years back? That nothing is worth my health, and it can all wait?” Brian raises an eyebrow, watching me as I take a sip of my water and concentrate harder than I should have to on holding onto the damn glass and not spilling it on myself.

I sigh, knowing that he’s right. I did tell him that, and I still believe wholeheartedly in those words. And I’ve been trying my best to continue to live them in my own life, but I’m struggling. “I’m trying,” I say, shrugging, carefully setting my glass back down on the table before I drop it and end up raising Brian’s suspicions as well. Luckily, I’ve been able to hold the fork today, and it hasn’t slipped through my fingers even once. I say a silent prayer that continues, partially because I don’t need Brian to worry about me too, and partially because I need for things to be improving. Again, more evidence to support my theory that everything is fine. Although I’ll switch to picking up my glass with my left hand from here on out, just to be safe.

“You should come work for me,” he says casually, as he spears a piece of chicken and pops it in his mouth.

“Doing what?” I laugh, and it feels good to do that. “I’m in sales, not advertising.” But I do know this is how Brian solves problems for people -- he throws money at them -- so I’m not particularly surprised that he’s suggesting this, even though I think the idea is laughable.

“Two sides of the same coin. You’re still trying to convince people that they need what you’ve got, you’re just doing it in a different way.”

“Maybe so, but I don’t have a marketing degree.”

“You’ve been working in sales for what, almost twenty years?”

“Seventeen.”

“Okay, my point still stands. You know how to sell a product. That’s all you need to know how to do. Sell your product, and sell yourself and your services to the client. I’ve got staff to take care of the rest.”

“Yeah, but I sell one very specific type of product to one very specific set of clients. You sell everything to everybody.”

“You’re smart. You’d learn fast.”

“Well, thanks for the vote of confidence, but I think I’ll stay where I am. I’ve got so much time in now, I’ve got good retirement, and this can’t last forever. It has to get better.”

Brian shrugs and says, “Suit yourself,” then changes the subject, telling me about an art show Justin has coming up -- something else I’ll have to miss because I’ll be traveling.

I make it through the rest of the meal without dropping my fork, and without letting on that anything is wrong besides being just plain exhausted. I give Brian a hug as we go our separate ways outside the cafe, and he tells me to take some of my own advice and take care of myself, and I nod and say, “I know.” Because I do know. I swear I’m not pulling a Brian and just giving myself over to work, throwing myself into it in some ill-advised attempt at distracting myself from a larger issue -- I really am trying my best.

Later that afternoon, I’m in a meeting when my cell phone starts buzzing in my shirt pocket. I pull it out and see that it’s my neurologist, so I politely excuse myself to take the call, trying to ignore the irritated look I get from my boss, John, when I do so.

I breathe a sigh of relief right there in the hallway when he tells me that my MRI is clear -- he doesn’t see any problems with either my hardware or my spine -- and so is the CT scan, so there’s nothing going on with my brain either. Then he tells me he thinks I’m just overworking -- I need more breaks, more time out of my everyday chair, more time in my standing chair or my standing frame, and more time to relax. He reminds me that I only have one body and I need to take care of it. I’ve been living with this injury for more than 25 years now, and I know he’s right. But the pressures of life are strong, and I can’t just decide to take a break whenever I want to anymore. I hate that, but that’s the situation I’m dealing with.

I thank him, and I hang up the phone and go back into my meeting, again ignoring the looks I’m getting from across the conference room table. Running my fingers back and forth over my pen, I note that at the moment, they feel almost normal. Maybe having a week without travel has helped. Maybe the doctor is right -- I just need more breaks, and I’ll be fine. When I get back to my office, I switch to my standing chair and raise my fancy, adjustable desk to standing height so I can work while bearing some weight on my legs and getting my body into the position it was designed for.

I stay in my standing chair for the rest of the afternoon, only lowering it down when I need to move around my office or the building. It feels good to do that, and my hand feels okay, so I make up my mind that this is what I need. I start thinking about my calendar and trying to figure out whether or not it would be possible to take my standing chair with me to Omaha next week.

Once I know school is dismissed for the day, I call Adam to tell him my “good” news -- that there’s nothing wrong with my spine or my brain. He agrees with the doctor that I need to slow down a little, and I know they’re both right, but I’m still in the process of figuring out how I can do that without pissing off the wrong person and putting my job in jeopardy.

I make it out of the office at my regular time, and I’m thankful to be able to do that, because it’s been much too long since I’ve been able to. It feels so good to come home when Adam is still cooking dinner, to be able to roll up behind him and wrap my arms around his waist from behind and have him turn around and kiss me, his lips tasting ever-so-slightly of the vegetable stew he’s been cooking.

Esme seems to have made up her mind that she’s going to be vegetarian now, and as a result, we hardly ever eat any meat at dinner anymore. I’ve always eaten pretty healthfully -- at least, for the past twenty years or so -- but now I’m eating even more vegetables than before, which I’m sure has to be helping me get through this stressful time at work.

Sitting down to a home-cooked meal at the table with my family feels so good -- just catching up and talking about the day. Adam is watching me, like he’s trying not to but can’t help himself. He’s still worried; I can tell. I give him a reassuring smile as I hold my fork more firmly than I have in days, maybe weeks, trying to show him that I’m fine.

I help the girls with their homework -- though I’m not even sure why they have it since there are only a few days left in the school year -- thinking all the while about how much I missed this ordinary task that many parents might dread, and that I used to dread myself. For the first time in a long while, I feel useful -- like I’m being a good partner to my husband, who is probably the best, most understanding, even-keel person I know. But even though he’d never complain, I don’t want him to feel like he’s a single parent here and I’m married to my job instead of him.

After the girls are in bed and I’ve kissed them both goodnight, Adam and I settle onto the sofa in the living room to watch the ten o’clock news and just be with each other. He rubs my shoulders and my neck, and it feels so good that one thing leads to another and we end up together in the shower, our bodies connected in the most intimate way. I’ve missed that, too.

Later that night, in bed, Adam kisses me with the tenderness that is just so _him_ , and I think about how lucky I am to have him. I always try to remember that, no matter what. I feel like I have the best partner in the world. He lays against my side, his fingers trailing lightly over my chest, as he looks at me, and I stare up at the ceiling, lost in thought. Dreading getting up in the morning and having to go to work and repeat the cycle all over again.

“We should take a vacation,” he says, his voice soft in the darkness. “Maybe just the two of us. School will be done on Thursday, and Mom’s already coming up on Saturday; I’m sure she’d love to have the girls to herself for a whole week. I can make sure I get my grades in over the weekend, and we can just go.”

I laugh a little, thinking about how Brian had just told me earlier that afternoon that what I needed was a vacation. But somehow now that, plus the doctor’s diagnosis, plus Adam bringing it up again, gets me thinking that maybe they’re right. Maybe I should take this as a sign from the universe that a break is what I need. Adam and I haven’t taken a trip with just the two of us in years -- not since we adopted the girls.

Right then, I make a decision that I’m going to figure it out. Brian was right -- no, _I_ was right -- nothing is worth my health. Everything can wait. I’ll send my best sales rep to Omaha in my place, and I’ll take next week off. Adam and I will go on a vacation -- spur of the moment, throw caution to the wind. Why not? It might be just what the doctor ordered.


	3. Chapter 3

As I predicted, the alarm goes off much too early in the morning, but there is at least one good thing -- the good morning kiss my husband gives me before we both get out of bed and start our day. Adam makes breakfast and packs my lunch for me, and I want to tell him that he doesn’t have to do that, but he shushes me before I can even open my mouth, telling me that he’s doing it because he wants to, not because he feels like he has to. I feel lucky to have a husband who just steps in without even being asked when he knows I’m struggling, because I know not everyone has that. But that’s just Adam -- he’s perceptive and sensitive, and he always wants to help people in any way he can.

I wish he could go with me to help convince my boss to let me have next week off, but sadly, that’s not an option. Two hours later, I'm in my office, staring at my too-full calendar and trying to shuffle things around and delegate tasks so I can take the vacation with my husband that I want and need to take. I choose Alicia to go to the trade show in Omaha in my place, and I send an email to a handful of trusted coworkers, asking them if they'd be willing to take on a few of the things that can't wait until I get back. 

I know I'm asking a lot, because we're all swamped right now, and I almost talk myself out of the trip a few times, but I keep hearing my doctor's words echoing in my head, telling me I only have one body and I need to take care of it, and that keeps me on task. 

My hand is okay today, and I'm hoping that perhaps whatever it was, it's over now, and I just need to keep it from coming back. The way to do that is by doing what my doctor asked me to do and taking a break -- getting away from the constant, never ending grind that has been my life for the past few months. It started a couple of weeks after Mom’s heart attack, and it hasn’t let up since. No wonder my body is rebelling.

Adam and I spent the time just before we both fell asleep last night looking for a place to stay, letting the availability of an accessible home make the choice for us. I know we would always be welcome at Brian and Justin’s place in Pittsburgh, but I think I just want to get away and go someplace where no one knows us, where it’ll just be Adam and I. We ended up finding a place on the Jersey Shore, which is good because it’s close by so we can rent a car and drive. Road trips are another thing I enjoy, and sometimes, living in the city, I miss them. I find myself really looking forward to every aspect of this trip, but most of all, I’m looking forward to just spending a week with Adam, with nothing to worry about or focus on except the two of us.

I log into my employee benefits account to check my leave balance, and find that I have five weeks of vacation available to me -- the week I carried over from last year, and almost all of this year’s, untouched. Plus a week of sick time. But will I be able to take it without a fight? That’s the question.

I get precisely the look I expected when I go into John’s office and tell him that I’d like to take next week off -- like I must be joking. I know it's not really just coming from him, though. I know he has people putting pressure on him, and that's what's leading him to put pressure on us. He really isn't a bad guy. But he's overwhelmed just like we all are.

I don't want to share the real reason I'm taking off on this sudden trip -- I'd rather keep my issues to myself. The last thing I want is someone feeling sorry for me or thinking this is about my disability, because it's not. Shit like this happens to people. I think my disability just gives me the perspective to know I need to stand my ground. So I do. 

“I know it’s short notice, and it’s not the best time,” I say, and John snorts, but doesn’t say anything, so I continue. “But I really need some downtime. I’ve got the rest of the week to take care of everything that I’ve got on my list now, and Sheila and Kelly have agreed to take on anything that comes up next week that can’t wait.” Actually, Sheila had volunteered without even being asked, as soon as I brought up the trip while she was pouring her coffee and I was heating up the water for my morning cup of tea.

“And what about the trade show in Omaha next week? Who’s going to that, if not you?”

“Alicia Estes. She’s the best I have, and I trust her completely. I know she’ll do a great job.”

“You know I can’t stop you,” he sighs, and I can see in his eyes that he’s just as worn out as I am.

I nod, because I do know. I have the time; they can’t prevent me from taking it. And if they tried, I’d probably have grounds for a lawsuit. But I still want him to feel okay about it -- like I’m not just saying “fuck you” and taking off. “I need this right now,” I reiterate. “I think it’ll help me get more done in the long run. I’ve been going nonstop for months.”

That’s the truth, and he knows it. He’s been my boss for a few years now -- he knows me, and he knows my work ethic. He knows what’s important to me, too, and that this breakneck pace we’ve been running at recently just isn’t me.

“I’ll make sure everything that needs to get done, does,” I continue. “And everything else, I’ll take care of when I get back.”

He purses his lips and nods, and lets out a heavy sigh before he says, “Have a safe trip,” in a resigned tone.

I spend the next few days trying to get ahead of the game, so I can keep my promise. Of course, that means more late nights at the office that make me look forward even more to our getaway, because I’m missing my quality time with my husband.

Adam’s mom comes up on Saturday and, just as we thought she would be, she’s excited to have a week to spend with her granddaughters. And they love her, so they’re excited too. I know they’ll miss us, and we’ll miss them, but I know they’re in good hands.

Adam and I rent a car and leave for New Jersey on Sunday, and I never thought that leaving the city behind in the rear-view mirror would feel so good, but it does. It feels symbolic, like I’m leaving my stress and worry behind as well.

I delete my email app from my phone temporarily, because I know I wouldn’t be able to watch the notifications climb without adding to my stress level, which I don’t want to do. This trip is about rest and relaxation.

We used to take trips like this all the time when we first got married. We’d decide on a whim that we wanted to go somewhere for the weekend, and we’d pack up and make it happen. But that’s hard to do with kids, so we’ve pretty much given that up, save for the occasional day trip to a place we can easily reach by train. This trip, though… it’s just what I need, I think.

The house is perfect -- just a couple of blocks from the boardwalk, with a private backyard and a hot tub. We spend some of our evenings cooking on the grill that’s out on the patio, and some of them eating at the cafes we find along the boardwalk. We spend almost every day exploring the town or just lying on the beach, and every night relaxing together in the hot tub, which I’m able to use pretty easily with a little bit of help from Adam, mostly with getting back out. I don’t mind that though -- I never do. I value my independence, but it’s okay to need help sometimes. I would never want to be a burden on anyone, though.

About three days into the trip, my neck starts hurting. Adam helps me massage it out, and it takes the pain away for a day or so, then it comes back. I’m able to get an appointment with a massage therapist in town who tells me that my neck and shoulders are some of the most knotted up he’s ever seen -- surprise, surprise -- but somehow he works his magic, and I get relief that lets me enjoy the last few days of our trip, including a sunset boat ride with my husband on the final night that makes me feel like a newlywed on my honeymoon.

The trip passed by way too quickly, and I wish we could stay for another week, but I know we can’t. We have to get back to real life, and I have to get back to work. But my hand has felt fine the whole time, which I take as a really, really good sign. And I feel mentally refreshed -- a good sign as well -- though I’m still dreading reinstalling my email app on Monday morning.

When Monday morning comes and I get back to the office, there’s no such thing as easing back into work after vacation. Instead, I’m hit with the full weight of everything I missed while I was gone, in the form of hundreds of emails, dozens of items added to my calendar, so many voicemails that no one was able to leave one past Thursday morning because my mailbox was full, and a whole bunch of shit that needs to be done “ASAP,” which might as well mean right fucking now.

Yeah, welcome back.

I try to keep doing what I know I need to do -- standing more often, and just taking a moment to breathe every once in a while -- but it’s a challenge, to say the least. I feel like I’m drowning in work -- like I’m never going to get caught up. So that means more late nights at the office on the days when I’m in town, and extra stressful travel days of trying to get as much done at the airport in between flights as I possibly can. All the while, I miss my family, and I wish that there was something I could do to speed up the process of all of this getting better, so I don’t have to keep entertaining the thought of leaving the job I’ve had for more than twenty years and starting all over again at a new company, just to save my sanity.

I go to Nashville the following week for some meetings with a vendor, and it's there that all of the problems I'd been having with my hand come back with a vengeance and a much faster progression than they had the first time around. And now, my neck hurts when I turn it a certain way, and I have a sharp pain radiating down my entire right arm that's making it extremely hard to push my chair. I'm getting it done because I have to, but it hurts like hell.

I suppose this is the price I pay for jumping right back in at work, though it's not like I had a choice. 

I know I'm nearing the end of my rope when I call Adam from my hotel room before I go to sleep, and it's all I can do not to cry. I want more than just to hear his voice; I want to feel his arms around me, reassuring me that everything is going to be okay. I don't even know why I'm so emotional, but it's like everything has hit me all at once, and I can barely speak for fear I'm going to break down. He still picks up on it though; he knows me too well.

“Are you okay?” he asks. It's an innocent enough question, but I can hear the deep concern his voice is laced with.

I try to keep my voice from wavering when I answer, and I thank god he can't see me because I know I have tears in my eyes, and I'm not okay, but I feel like I have to pretend I am, as I lie in yet another strange bed in another strange city, alone. My neck hurts and my arm hurts and it was more difficult than I'd like to admit to get in bed at all. “Sure,” I lie. “Just tired.”

“Rob, you can't keep doing this. You can't keep going like this.”

“I know.” And I do. And if I could stop it, believe me, I would.

“I'm worried about you,” he says softly. “I'm afraid something's going to happen, if you don't slow down.”

I have a feeling something is already happening, although I don't want to admit it, even to myself.

I'm worried about me too.

And honestly, I'm scared.


	4. Chapter 4

I lean my head back against the airplane seat and gently roll my neck from side to side, in what I know is a useless attempt at trying to get it to stop aching. Sometimes the pain is dull, and sometimes it’s sharp, but it’s always there, reminding me that something isn’t right.

But the MRI was clear, so it has to be muscular, right? Maybe I just need to start going for massages more often, though I have no idea when I’m going to find time for that. The last thing I want to do is take more time away from my family.

I know Adam understands, but I still feel terrible that he’s having to do so much, and I’m doing so little. He tells me he knows I’m doing what I can, and that he wants me to take care of myself, and I know he means it, but it’s still hard. 

My yoga practice has been suffering too, because I'm trying to spend as much time sleeping as I possibly can -- in an effort to at least do something to help restore my weary mind and body. After more than two decades of practicing yoga, I know it's really not the best thing to cut, but something has to give and I don't feel like anything else is an option, because I need sleep, and I'm not getting enough of it.

I had to be at the airport at six this morning, which meant I had to get up at four to have enough time to get through my morning routine, which I've already condensed as much as possible. I struggled through it this morning too, with a hand and arm that simply didn't want to cooperate. But I made it, and here I am, the first person on the plane -- thankful for the large amount of frequent flier miles I've earned recently, which allowed me to upgrade to first class today, so I can at least be more comfortable.

Adam's words are echoing in my head: _You can't keep going like this_. I know he's right, but I'm just not seeing a way out right now. I could use another vacation, but that's out of the question. So I'll have to make do with what I can. I just need to get home, and then I have a whole weekend to spend with Adam and the girls.

I've already decided I'm working as little as possible today. It's Friday, and it’s only a travel day, because by the time I get back to New York, everyone else will have headed home for the weekend. So I'm leaving my laptop in my bag, and trying to rest where I can. God bless airport lounges for business travelers. I check my email one last time -- same shit, different day -- before I put my phone away, put on my neck pillow and close my eyes. I drift off quickly and sleep so soundly that I don’t remember anything until someone bumps my arm with their suitcase while they’re deplaning and I wake with a start, realizing I’m now in Chicago, where I’ll be spending the next two hours -- so close and yet so far away from my parents.

Mom’s been doing okay since her heart attack. She’s eating better and getting out and going for walks, and I’m proud of her for making the changes she’s made. I also know that if I hope to avoid being the one having a heart attack next time, I have to find some way to continue to follow my doctor’s advice.

I have a snack in the lounge and close my eyes again, this time setting an alarm on my phone so I don’t miss my flight. Soon, it’s time to board, and I get on the plane that will take me back to my husband and our kids. This flight feels long, and so does the car ride back to our home in Brooklyn, but finally, I get there, and from the moment I arrive, I’m not sure I’ve ever felt more loved in my life. Sophia jumps into my lap and nearly knocks me over backward, but I don’t even mind, because it feels so good to have her arms around me and to feel her boundless energy that I wish I could borrow somehow. Esme gives me a hug and a kiss on the cheek, and I wonder when she’ll decide she’s too old to keep doing that. That realization makes me think about how much I’ve been missing over the last few months, and I can feel the sadness and regret welling up again. I try to push it back, because all I want to do right now is relax and enjoy my family.

Adam sees it, though, and he kisses me and then reaches up and brushes his thumb over the corner of my eyelid to wipe away a tear that’s probably closer to falling than I’d like it to be, giving me a small smile that says so much -- that he wishes there was more he could do to make things easier for me. He takes good care of me that night -- making dinner, then massaging my neck as we sit together on the sofa watching a movie that somehow both girls managed to agree on. But I know he’s also noticed my reluctance to use my right hand for much of anything, and how hard it was for me to shift my body over to the sofa, because my right arm feels oddly weak and a little shaky.

He’s gentle with me when we go to bed -- rubbing my back and my shoulders, working his way down my arms to my hands, and when he gets to the right one, I really notice how strange it feels. I think I’ve sort of gotten used to the relative numbness at this point, but for some reason, having someone else touch it seems to put a spotlight on the difference between it and my left. I fall asleep with his arms wrapped around me, feeling like all is right in the world.

And for the weekend, everything is right in the world. It’s the break I’ve been needing -- the one I hope will help me heal my hand and arm again with rest and relaxation, the same way it did a few weeks ago. But that doesn’t happen. I go back to work on Monday and continue to struggle, trying my best to push through, against my better judgment, but again, feeling like I don’t have a choice.

I switch to taking all of my notes in meetings on my laptop, because typing, while difficult, is easier than trying to write. I’d like to be in my standing chair more, but transfers are hard and a little more complicated with my arm the way it is, and the standing chair is heavier than my regular chair, which makes it harder to push, so staying in it while moving around a whole lot isn’t really an option right now. Besides, the last thing I want to risk doing is falling at work. Or falling at all, for that matter, because I’m not sure I’ll be able to get back up unassisted. That’s another thing that’s keeping me from doing yoga, even though I’m sure it would help with so much of this. It’s vicious cycle, and I don’t know how to get out of it.

I keep trying to wait it out -- wait for things to get better -- but they aren’t. I’m taking every moment that I can to rest and breathe and just chill out, but it’s not enough. Weeks go by, and my hand progressively gets more and more useless, until there’s absolutely no way I can hide it from Adam or anyone else. But I keep explaining it away as just stress, just like it was before, and I’m working on it and it’ll hopefully get better soon. Only it doesn’t.

Brian is the one who calls me out on it, after I cancelled our lunch plans and he brought food over to my office instead because he said he needed a bitch session, and he wouldn’t listen to me when I tried to stop him. Only he doesn’t really take that bitch session, because he spends the entire time watching me. He raises his eyebrow when I’m eating primarily with my left hand, and when he notices I’ve switched my computer mouse over to the other side as well, but it takes him a while to actually say something. When he does, he’s every bit as blunt as I expected him to be, just because he’s Brian.

“What’s up with your hand?” he asks, and I can see that he’s confused and concerned.

I’m not sure why I decide to be honest with him, but something drives me to tell him the whole story -- that it’s not just my hand, it’s my whole arm now, and it happened once but it got better with rest and now I’m trying to make that happen again, but nothing is changing, and I’m frustrated and scared and by the time I’m done confessing everything to him, I can see that he’s deeply worried. He doesn’t ask if Adam knows -- he probably assumes he does, and I know I’m a fucking idiot for hiding this from my partner, but it is what it is.

He does, however, ask me if I’ve been to the doctor, and I tell him that whole story, but it doesn’t take away the concern in his eyes.

“You should go back,” he says, his voice firm. “Something’s not right.”

And I don’t know why hearing someone else say it finally pushes me to take action, but it does. Still, I’m nervous about what I’ll find out. Maybe that’s why I’ve been trying to hide it; because there’s a pretty significant part of me that wants to keep pretending nothing is wrong.

I make the appointment, and I don’t tell Adam about it, and I go there alone on a Tuesday afternoon, while my phone keeps buzzing in my pocket with email notifications -- I can’t even take a few hours off without ending up buried in a neverending onslaught of messages. We repeat the same process we did before -- a discussion, a physical exam, checking my reflexes and my strength -- only this time, there’s a lot more frowning on my doctor’s part, and I can tell he’s concerned as well. He sends me off for another MRI and another CT scan, and I wait, again, for the results.

Those few days pass by fairly quickly, because they’re spent continuing the breakneck pace I’ve been keeping for months now, since clearly trying not to do that hasn’t done a damn thing for what’s going on with me, so I might as well just keep going, I guess. I know that doesn’t really make any sense, but… that’s where we are.

When I get the call this time, I’m alone in my office.

“I’d like you to come in as soon as possible, to discuss the results of your MRI and CT scan,” he says, and I can hear in his voice that there’s something else he’s not saying. I want to ask, but at the same time I don’t want to, because I’d rather remain in my blissfully ignorant state as long as I can.

I nod, forgetting for a moment that he can’t see me, before I choke out a nervous, “Okay, sure… when?”

“I have an opening tomorrow morning at 8:30 if you can make that.”

I look at my calendar and see that I’m supposed to be in a meeting, but I’ll have to figure something out, because if he wants to see me this soon, whatever it is, it’s serious. And I don’t like that.

I don’t like that at all.


	5. Chapter 5

It’s never a good thing when your doctor starts off a conversation with, “I don’t know why we didn’t see this before.”

But it’s even worse when the next words out of his mouth are, “There’s a mass on your spine, and it appears to be compressing your spinal cord at C5.”

Those are the words that cause time to stop. Those are the words that echo over and over in my head, swirling around and passing through again and again, bending and distorting, but never changing.

Part of me wants to ask him to repeat himself, hoping I’ve misheard. But another part is afraid to hear the words again, as if that would somehow make them even more true.

Somehow, I manage to digest what he’s telling me -- that based on the imaging, he suspects it’s a tumor, and the only way to know if it’s cancerous or not is surgery. Either a biopsy or a removal, depending on how things look when he actually gets in there. But the bottom line is that the only advisable course of action is to operate, and it’s best that we do it soon, if I’m to have any hope of getting full function back in my hand and arm. Otherwise, it will continue to grow, and my symptoms will keep getting worse, likely until I find myself becoming a quadriplegic. And ultimately, if it’s malignant, it will kill me.

My brain is having a hard time wrapping itself around those words -- that concept. I feel like I’ve been completely blindsided, and I don’t know what to think or say. I’m just sitting there in disbelief, staring at the images on the screen -- at the small, white blob that shouldn’t be there, wedged between my vertebrae and bleeding over ever-so-slightly into the space where my spinal cord lies. Wondering why it wasn’t there before. What I could have done to cause it.

Wondering why this is happening to me.

Of course, the surgery is not without risk, he explains, and the process of removing the growth could damage my spinal cord as well. So either way, I could end up a quad. 

Suddenly, I have an overwhelming sense of deja vu, as my brain recalls the memory of being told I’d broken my back and I was probably never going to walk again. How devastating that was. How I felt like some cosmic force had taken my entire life -- the one I’d carefully laid out and planned for and worked so hard on -- and stomped it beneath its enormous boot. But I found a way to recover, and I found myself and I moved on, even though it was hard. Now, I have this beautiful life -- my husband, our kids, and our collective existence -- and that boot is once again poised to smash everything I’ve ever known and turn it into something unrecognizable.

He asks me if I have any questions, and I know that I do, but I can’t seem to organize my thoughts into anything coherent. So I just sit there, and I close my eyes for a moment, then shake my head. When I open my eyes, his hand is on my knee -- a gesture of comfort that’s wasted on me -- and I can see in his face how sorry he is to have to deliver this news to me, his patient of nearly twenty years, who has already lost so much and now stands to lose even more. He knows how devastating it is. But that’s not really a comfort either. I’m not sure what would be at this point. We schedule the surgery for next week, and it feels too soon, and at the same time, not soon enough.

I leave the office feeling like the last half hour or so must have been some sort of bizarre dream -- a nightmare. I stop on the sidewalk just outside the door and feel like I have to catch my breath, because I’m suffocating under the weight of what I’ve just been told. I’m supposed to go back to work, but I don’t know how I can. I need to talk to someone.

I know I should talk to Adam, but I don’t want to say any of this over the phone. Actually I don’t want to say it at all. How do you tell your partner that you’ve got a possibly cancerous growth that’s probably going to lead to even more permanent disability than you already have? This news has the potential to change everything for me, and for us. And I have no fucking idea how to tell him.

Finally, after what was probably far too long to linger outside the door to the high-rise building that houses my neurologist’s office, I manage to get myself moving and get to the subway so I can go back to my own office. I still don’t know how I’m going to continue with my workday, but I have to try. Maybe I can at least lock myself in my office for an hour or two and try to digest this. Try to figure out what the hell I’m going to say to Adam -- my love, my partner, my soulmate, the man who’s always been there for me.

Once I’m on the train, I grip one of the poles tightly with my left hand to keep my balance as the train lurches forward, and I can’t help but wonder what it would be like to ride the subway if I couldn’t do that. I already have no use of my core, so my balance is pretty shitty outside of my chair, where my custom-molded backrest and my seat cushion work together to support me and help keep me upright. But what will it be like without the use of my arms and my hands? Without the ability to catch myself or hold onto something to keep from falling over?

I know a lot of people who are quads through my work with spinal cord injury related organizations and groups, so it’s not like it’s totally foreign to me -- and the quads I know are amazing, capable, intelligent people who lead normal lives and have jobs and families just like I do -- but I’ve never had to imagine myself in their position before. I’ve seen how they’re treated even more differently than paras are -- sometimes with disdain, even, as disgusting as that is. It’s horribly unjust and I know it and it makes me angry, and it’s part of the perception that I’ve spent a good portion of my life trying to help change through my activism. But how would I deal with being in their situation? To be honest, I’m not sure.

I’ve always had the advantage, as wrong as that word sounds in this instance, of assuming that would never be me. I was lucky; I’d broken my back and not my neck, purely because I’d hit the water at just the right angle. But now I’m faced with the knowledge that it very well could be me someday, and that notion is scarier than anything I’ve ever faced before.

I’ve been a paraplegic for 25 years -- I’ve rolled for longer than I walked -- and at this point, so much of my life and the way that I move feels like second nature. My memories of what it felt like to stand under my own power and walk are foggy and distant at best. And I know that when I was lying in that hospital bed in Chicago all those years ago, I felt much the same way I’m feeling right now -- devastated, like I couldn’t imagine what my life was going to be like. But that doesn’t make this any easier to accept.

Quite frankly, I don’t want to imagine my life as a quadriplegic, because I don’t want to be one, and that makes me feel like a hypocrite, after spending so many years trying to help others come to terms with their injury -- trying to show them they can still lead a full life. But the fact of the matter is, I may not have a choice. And that’s what’s truly devastating.

I get off the train at my stop -- lifting my front casters to get over the threshold in a move that I’m all too aware might not be so easy someday soon. When I emerge from the elevator at street level, I see the building that I know houses Kinnetik NYC about halfway down the block to my left, and three blocks from the building that houses my own office, which is in the other direction. Before I can question what I’m doing, I turn left and push myself down the sidewalk, trying to ignore how much effort it takes this morning because my arm already feels tired and weak, and I don’t want to think about what’s causing it. Then, I go through the automatic doors into the lobby, tell the receptionist that I’m there to see Brian Kinney at Kinnetik, and she nods, gesturing toward the elevator and telling me kindly that Mr. Kinney’s office is on the eighth floor, which I already know, but she sees so many people every day that it’s no wonder she doesn’t recognize me with the mere handful of times I’ve been here before.

Brian and I usually meet up for lunch at a nearby cafe once a week, but lately, I’ve had to cancel more than I’ve been able to make it, and for some reason I feel more terrible about that now than I ever have before. Maybe because somewhere in my subconscious mind, I know what I’m about to do -- what I’m about to lay on my friend, and what a heavy load I’ll be asking him to shoulder. But I need to get this out. I need to hear myself say it out loud -- an admission of truth, I suppose -- before I can even begin to wrap my brain around it.

I close my eyes in the elevator as it glides quietly toward the eighth floor, and I can feel the moisture pricking at the corners of my eyelids from the mixture of emotions that are swirling within me -- sadness, anger, frustration, uncertainty… and most of all, fear. But I can’t go in there crying. I need to get ahold of myself. I need to try to stay calm.

In spite of my best efforts, I know I’m shaking when I come out of the elevator and start pushing my way toward Brian’s office, and I’m starting to lose my battle for control when I reach the door, but I take a deep breath and tell myself to keep it together.

Brian is sitting at his computer, tapping his pen on the table, deep in thought as he studies something on the screen. The door is open, but I knock anyway, and he looks up at me. The expression on face is surprise for a split second, before it morphs into concern with a definite note of unease, which tells me a whole hell of a lot about how I look right now. He puts down his pen and comes out from behind his desk, his brow furrowed as he comes closer to me, gesturing for me to come inside. He closes the door and turns to face me.

“What is it?” he asks, and even his voice is laden with worry.

I want to answer him but I don’t know where the fuck to start. I open my mouth to speak, but nothing comes out.

“Rob, what?” I can hear the urgency starting to edge into his tone. “Is it Adam? The girls? Did something happen?”

“No,” I manage to choke out. “They’re okay. They’re all okay.” I’m shaking harder now, and I can feel myself getting closer to losing control, but I still can't say it.

“Your mom, then? Is it your mom? Or your dad?”

I shake my head, and Brian gets as close to me as he can. His voice changes to this soft, understanding timbre that I’ve heard him use before with Justin, when Justin gets really frustrated or upset about something, but I haven’t heard it in a long time, and he’s never used it with me. He’s never had to.

“Rob, you can tell me,” he says, his hand reaching out for mine, just like it would have with Justin -- to make contact, to let me know he’s here. “Whatever it is, you can tell me.”

“It’s a tumor,” I whisper, after a few beats and a series of shaky breaths, and it’s no easier to hear that word come out of my own mouth than it was to hear it come out of the doctor’s mouth an hour ago.

“What? Where?”

I hold up my hand, which is trembling, but not from the strain and muscle weakness that it has been for the last two months -- this time, it’s from sheer terror. Brian looks at it, then back at me.

“It’s on my spine,” I say softly, still not wanting to believe that any of this is reality. “Pressing on my spinal cord. That’s what’s wrong with my hand.”

I see a myriad of different feelings and reactions cross Brian’s face -- shock, worry, fear, sympathy, helplessness -- before he reaches out to me and pulls me into a hug. A hug that I practically collapse into as the flood of emotion I’ve been holding back finally breaks through, and the man that I met purely by chance more than a decade ago ends up holding me while I cry.


	6. Chapter 6

Brian gives me a safe place to express all of my thoughts and fears, because he understands. He gets it on a level that no matter how much Adam loves and cares for me, he simply cannot, because he’s not sitting where we are. Maybe that’s why I came to Brian; because I knew he’d get it.

He understands perfectly what I mean when I say I’ve already accepted myself once, and I don’t think I can do it again, because he’s been there, and he can’t imagine doing it all over again either. And he understands the fear and uncertainty of cancer because, though his situation was different, he’s been there too.

“I’ve done everything I could possibly do to stay healthy,” I say, my voice still thick with emotion, though I’m no longer crying, and I can hear my frustration starting to bleed through now as well. “I don’t understand. How did this happen?”

“The same way it happened to me,” Brian says, shrugging. We’ve moved to the couch in his private office, and he’s poured me a glass of whiskey, which ordinarily I would have refused because I hardly ever drink, but desperate times call for desperate measures. “Shit happens.”

I lean my head back and close my eyes, then take another sip of the whiskey, which really has done what Brian said it would. It’s calming my nerves and helping slow the constant churning of thoughts and worries and emotions that have been running through my brain ever since the doctor told me my problems were being caused by a tumor. I know I can’t go back to work now anyhow -- I’m too upset and I’d be far too distracted -- though I’m sure my phone will be ringing any minute now with someone wondering why I’m not back yet. All I’d said was that I had an appointment. It was the truth -- how was I to know that said appointment was going to turn my entire life upside down?

But that’s how life works. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. And today, mine has.

“What if I lose my job?” I sigh. “I’m probably going to have to take a lot of time off.”

“They can’t fire you for that. You could sue their asses. And I’ll help you fucking do it.”

I can’t help but laugh, because that’s absolutely the most Brian-like thing he could have said in that moment, and I open my eyes to see him giving me that smirk he’s so good at. But then his expression turns serious again.

“But you can always come work for me,” he says. “My offer still stands.”

“And what if I come out of this surgery and I can only shrug my shoulders? Or what if I can’t even do that? What if I can’t breathe on my own? What if something happens? A spinal stroke, or worse?”

Now it’s his turn to sigh. “Rob, you don’t even know that any of that is going to happen. And it’s probably not going to.”

“But what if it does? I don’t want charity.”

“It wouldn’t be charity. You’re good at what you do, and I’d love to have you on my team. As long as your brain still works, I don’t see that changing. You don’t need arms to come up with an ad campaign.”

I don’t argue with him any further, but somewhere in the back of my mind there’s another catastrophizing thought that tells me even that isn’t a guarantee.

We’re still just sitting there, talking, when my phone rings, and I have to try to not sound slightly drunk when I tell John that I got held up at my appointment and I don’t think I’m going to make it back in -- that I’ll see him tomorrow. At least the whiskey makes me not care when I hear the obvious exasperation in his response.

“I guess I have to go home and tell Adam now, huh?” I say, after I hang up the phone and slide it back in my pocket. I take a breath and let it out very slowly, trying to breathe out the tension and anxiety I’m feeling along with it, but it’s not working.

“Let him support you,” Brian says, as he finishes the last of the amber liquid in his own glass. “Trust me, trying to go through this shit on your own sucks.”

I nod, not that I was ever considering _not_ telling Adam, but I do know what it’s like to feel like you’re dealing with something entirely on your own, and how difficult and isolating that is, because that’s how I felt when I was first injured. I need to not let that happen here, and I know that.

I take the subway back home, just like I always do, but for the first time I’m actually glad it’s a long ride, instead of being frustrated by it like I normally am. It’s not that I don’t want to go home and be with my family -- I do. It’s that I don’t know how to say what I have to say to my husband when I get there.

I arrive at our building and go up to our floor, where I end up sitting outside the door for at least a couple of minutes, trying to work up the courage to unlock the door and go through it. Eventually, I do, and I see Adam sitting at the dining room table with Sophia, playing a board game. Esme’s nowhere to be seen, but that’s not unusual -- she seems to spend most of her time in her bedroom lately, drawing or dabbling with the paint set Justin gave her not long ago.

Adam looks up at me, surprised, and says, “Hey, you’re home early.” Then once he truly _looks_ at me, his expression changes. It’s subtle, but it’s there. I try my best to paste a smile on my face for Sophia, who launches herself at me and gives me a hug and a kiss and makes it incredibly difficult to push my emotions back down, because I love her so goddamned much and I can’t imagine not being able to hug her back. Luckily, Sophia doesn’t seem to realize anything is amiss. She goes back to the game, urging me to join them, but I don’t think I can keep it together for long enough to do that, as much as I’d love to.

“Not tonight, sweetheart,” I say, cursing the way my voice breaks just a little on the last word. “Papa’s really tired. I’m sorry.” And I am, but I also need to get out of that room before I break down, so I don’t say anything else before I turn and go straight to our bedroom, where I barely manage to get the door closed before I lose control over my emotions. Somehow, seeing Sophia’s face and feeling her arms around me made me realize just how much I stand to lose, and it makes me wonder how I’ll get through what’s to come.

I’m gasping for breath and trying to be as quiet as possible when I hear the doorknob click and I see Adam out of the corner of my eye, coming into the room. He closes the door behind him and comes over to me, then sits down on the edge of the bed, leaning forward so he can take both of my hands in his.

“What’s wrong?” he says softly.

I want to answer his question, but I still don’t know where to begin, and I can’t seem to catch my breath.

“You’re scaring me,” he says, his voice barely audible, and I can hear that he’s on the verge of tears now too. “Tell me, please. What is it?”

I wish I’d at least told him I was going back to the doctor, so I wouldn’t feel as much like I’m blindsiding him with this news -- at least then, he’d be expecting something. To Adam, this is totally out of the blue, and that’s no one’s fault but my own. I can’t turn back the clock and undo it, so I have to find a way to tell him the whole story, from beginning to end.

“I went to the doctor again,” I whisper, figuring that’s as good a place to start as any.

Adam just looks at me, waiting for me to continue, but I can see the trepidation in his eyes.

I take another deep breath and try to steel my resolve to get through the rest of this without breaking down, but I don’t know how effective it’s going to be. “My hand wasn’t getting any better, so, I figured I should.” I leave out the part where Brian basically told me to go, perhaps out of guilt that I’ve already told him about the rest of this and I’m still struggling to tell my partner.

“I wish you would have told me.” Adam’s fingers tighten around mine. “I would have gone with you.”

I nod and look down, unable to look my husband in the eye because I know he would have gone with me, but I was too much of a coward to admit that something still wasn’t right. “They found something this time,” I say, still looking down. “There’s a tumor on my spine. It might be cancer.”

When I can finally bring myself to look up at Adam, the tears that were already in his eyes have started to fall. I didn’t think I could feel any more awful for going and doing this without him, but now I do, because I can see the hurt in his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” I say, feeling the tears welling up again in my own eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

Adam doesn’t say anything, he just scoots closer to me and wraps his arms around me, pulling me in close to his body. I can feel his fingertips digging into my shoulder as he holds me tightly, and we cry together.

We take as long as we can alone in the bedroom, and I wonder what Adam told Sophia that’s made her stay out of the room for this long, but I can’t worry too much about it -- all that matters is that it worked. We needed this time together -- I needed this time with him more than anything. I won’t say that I necessarily feel better, because I’m not sure how possible that is at this point, but I do kind of feel like a weight has been lifted. I’m glad we’re on the same page now, because I hadn’t realized just how much it was hurting me to try to keep this from him.

I still don’t know what to tell the girls, but Adam tells me not to worry about that right now -- that we have time, and we can do it together. He goes in the bathroom to splash some water on his face, and I do the same, then we go back out together to our family. Sophia is sitting in the living room floor, playing with her dolls, and I help Adam make dinner, relishing the normalcy of the scene, trying to stay present -- just taking it all in and truly appreciating it. Esme joins us a few minutes later, showing Adam and I the drawing she’s been working on, and I’m blown away by the pure, natural talent she seems to possess, and I’m thankful to have met Justin, who has nurtured her love of art and helped her hone her gifts. I not only have an amazing husband; I have amazing friends as well, and I’m grateful for all of them. I need to keep reminding myself of that.

My fears and worries haven’t gone away, and keeping them from showing is a bit of a struggle at times, but I make it through dinner and all the way to shower and bed before everything starts to get the best of me again. Adam is able to calm me down, though -- pressing his forehead against mine in the darkness and softly reaffirming how much he loves me and promising me that we’ll get through this together, no matter what comes. But as the tears well up in my eyes and slide silently down my cheeks to the pillow, my fears and doubts still overshadow his words, and I wonder just how far he’s prepared to take his promise.


	7. Chapter 7

For the week leading up to my surgery, I feel like I'm caught in a whirlwind. But Adam is the very picture of support -- the absolute perfect spouse. He does everything that needs to be done, so I won’t have to worry about it, and takes care of the girls, and makes sure that I’m eating extra healthfully, just as the doctor ordered. But even in the midst of all of this support, my worries and anxieties continue to eat away at me.

Every time I do something or go somewhere, I find myself looking at it from a totally different perspective, wondering what it would be like to do it if I couldn’t use my hands or my arms. I find myself imagining how much harder everything would be, and worrying about the much higher cost of the adaptive equipment I might need. What I need right now isn’t cheap by any means, and I’m thankful that I have good health insurance through my job that keeps my needs from bankrupting our family. But I wonder how much would be covered if I suddenly could no longer use my manual wheelchair and needed a power chair instead. Then I start to wonder how we’d pay for any other care I might require, because I’d hate for Adam to have to shoulder that burden. He didn’t sign up for that.

At the same time, I’m still trying to keep my head above water at work, and finding that task more and more difficult while simultaneously trying to make sure everything is set up for the unexpected time off I’m about to take. All I’ve told anyone is that I’m having surgery -- not why or what might happen. No one needs to know the details; I’d rather keep them to myself.

We end up doing the same with the girls, because we don't want to scare them with all of the confusing possibilities and what-ifs. We tell them I'm having surgery on my neck for some problems I've been having, and we leave it at that. Of course, they're worried and scared anyhow, much like we are, and I’m sure it’s because they can see I'm nervous, but I don't know how to tell my daughters that I might have cancer, so Adam and I decide to wait until we know more.

I think the prospect of losing so much of my independence is probably the most difficult part of all of this. The last thing I want to be is a burden on anyone. As it stands, I can still do everything for myself, even with a fucked-up hand that doesn't always cooperate. But all of that could very well change when I leave the operating room. How will I accept that? I know I'll have to, but I still wonder how I'll deal with it -- how I'll manage to convince myself that I'm not a burden, even though I know better than to even think about seeing myself that way.

How can I start over again when it comes to accepting myself and my abilities? I know exactly where this fear is coming from -- it’s my own internalized ableism, as fucked up as that sounds coming from someone who’s lived more than half of his life with a disability. I’m self aware enough to know that, and I’m trying to work my way through it so I can come to a place of acceptance, the same way I did all those years ago, but right now that feels impossible, because all I’ve got running through my head is worst-case scenarios. That’s not like me at all, and I know that, but I can’t stop.

I know Adam loves me -- I've never doubted that -- but I can't seem to push away my worry that if everything changes for me, it will change our relationship too. That's scary, and it makes me feel so alone, even as we lay together in the dark every night, his arms around me and his familiar voice telling me he loves me.

I'm scared and I'm lonely, despite being surrounded by support, all because of what I can't bring myself to ask. Because I'm afraid of what the answer will be.

The days tick by, and my surgery creeps closer, while my anxiety over what will happen afterward continues to build. My rational brain tells me I'm being ridiculous -- so much so that I’m too embarrassed to share my thoughts with anyone else, because I can’t believe I’m having them at all -- but I still can't push the doubts away. I'm thinking about friends whose relationships and marriages suffered after their injury -- hell, even my own college boyfriend, whom I’d been with for two years, ended up slowly fading out of the picture after I got hurt, simply because he couldn't handle it. Things like that happen all the time, and I can't help but wonder if, when push comes to shove, Adam and I will become yet another statistic.

I also have my job to worry about, because I’m our primary breadwinner. The unanswered questions still linger there, too. How much time will I have to take off from work? What will happen if I come out of this surgery without the use of my arms? I have insurance in place for situations like this, because it’s something that I always have to consider, since nothing is guaranteed and no one knows that better than I do, but what happens when that runs out? What happens when I go back to work? How will I keep up with everything, when I’ve barely been able to do that as it is? How will I continue to provide for my family?

The stress of my fears piles on top of the stress I’m already feeling at work, as I try to keep going. It’s hard, though. I try to focus on the big picture -- mostly on my family -- but that brings up all of my anxieties again. By the night before my surgery, I’ve nearly reached my breaking point, and it’s all I can do to just breathe. I can feel Adam’s fingers tracing a soothing pattern across my upper arm, and his body pressed against my back, and it makes me think about how much I’ll miss this if my already-limited sensation becomes even more so. My body is practically vibrating with nervousness, and I’m sure he feels it too. I’ve got a lot riding on whatever happens tomorrow. There’s so much at stake, and I’m overwhelmed.

I’m staring into the darkness, trying to calm myself down enough to sleep and failing miserably at it, when my biggest fear comes out. It’s barely a whisper, and one I’m not even sure Adam will hear -- maybe part of me hopes he won’t -- but I need to release it before it pushes me over the edge.

“Will you still love me?”

My voice is smaller than I’ve heard it in a long time, and I almost feel like this isn’t me -- this isn’t the person I’ve worked so hard over the past 25 years to become. This is the frightened recent college graduate, lying in a hospital bed, wondering what he’s going to make of his life. The young man whose mother had to spend two years pushing him, to get him to reclaim his life. The young man who doubted that anyone would want a romantic relationship with him ever again, because why would they want him when they could have somebody -- anybody -- else?

“What?” Adam whispers behind me. His fingers stop moving on my arm. I can hear the confusion in his voice. He pulls back a little in the bed, causing me to roll over onto my back because I’d been leaning on him.

I look at him, and I see the hurt there in his eyes. Hurt that I know I’m causing, but I can’t stop. My doubts won’t let me stop. “If everything changes tomorrow…” I take in a shaky breath. “If I can’t feed myself… If I can’t do anything for myself…” I bite my lip and close my eyes because I can’t look at him right now. “Will you still want to be with me?”

A few seconds pass that feel like an eternity, and the doubt within me fears it’s because I’m right, but when his voice breaks the silence, I learn how wrong I am.

“How could you think that?” he asks, and I hear a gentleness there that I probably don’t deserve right now. “I would never leave you. I love you. No matter what happens tomorrow, you’ll still be you. That won’t change. You’ll still be the man I married.”

I open my eyes, and I can see the tears glistening in his to match my own, along with a deep sadness that parallels my overwhelming sense of fear and doubt.

“If the very worst thing happens tomorrow, I will always be here with you.” He pauses and reaches out to wipe a tear from my cheek that I didn’t realize had fallen. “No matter what. I promised you that almost fifteen years ago, and I’m keeping that promise. Please don’t worry about us -- I’m not going anywhere. If things change, then we’ll change with them. But I’ll always be here.”

I close my eyes again as his words start to sink in, and I try my best to believe them. I have to believe them. In that moment, I feel the tears slip down my cheeks as my shaky breaths turn to quiet sobs, and my husband holds me, telling me it’s all going to be okay, although I know he’s just as scared as I am.

By morning, I’m still scared shitless, but I also feel a sense of peace -- an acceptance that wasn’t there before. We leave Esme and Sophia with Charlene, our upstairs neighbor who is always happy to help us with the girls any time we need it, and we take a cab to the hospital, where I’ll be spending the next couple of nights at least, and I try not to think about how long I might be there if something goes wrong.

We don’t say much, but we don’t need to. Adam holds my hand in the back seat of the cab and smiles at me any time I look to him for reassurance, and the love in his eyes is unmistakable. For once, I don’t feel so alone, and it makes me wish I’d let him in earlier. But I know I wasn’t ready -- honestly, I don’t think I was ready to face what was happening myself.

He holds my hand all the way up to the moment when they take me away from him, as the medication they’d given me to help me relax starts to take effect. I try to remember how his fingers felt when they were linked with mine, making a promise to myself that even if I never feel it again, I’ll also never forget it.

The bright light above my head is hurting my eyes, so I allow them to slip closed as I count backward from ten, just as they asked me to. Imagining Adam here with me, and knowing that in spirit, he is, as the darkness closes in and I put all of my faith into the doctors and nurses taking care of me and into the knowledge that no matter what happens, I won’t have to go through it alone.

What feels like a split second later, my eyes are fluttering open, and the first thing I see when my vision finally comes into focus is Adam’s face. He’s holding my hand, and I can feel it. He’s smiling, too. My brain is foggy, and I’m so tired that all I want is to go back to sleep again. My mouth is dry and my throat feels scratchy, and I open my mouth to speak, but no words come out.

Adam grabs a cup with a straw in it from the bedside table and holds it up to my lips, and the water helps soothe my irritated throat.

“They got it,” he says, saving me from having to try to speak. “It was benign. You’re going to be fine.”

In that moment, the relief I feel is almost as overwhelming as the fear I’ve spent the last seven days entrenched in. I feel a smile spread across my lips as I blink up at Adam, my eyelids heavy, and I can see he’s just as relieved as I am. He brings my hand to his lips and kisses it, whispering, “I love you. Let yourself sleep, it’s okay. Don’t fight it. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

I focus on the feeling of my hand in his as I allow my eyes to drift shut and let sleep -- peaceful, blissful sleep -- claim me once again.


	8. Chapter 8

I spend two nights in the hospital and four more weeks recuperating at home, during which I come to more than a few realizations about how I’m spending my time and how I’d like to spend it in the future. I’m choosing to view the events of the last few months as a wake up call. Things could have been so much worse, and I’m grateful that they weren’t -- that all I had was a benign meningioma that was easily removed through surgery and isn’t expected to recur, and that full function was restored to my arm and hand almost immediately once it was gone. I have to sit out my wheelchair softball league this year, but that seems a small price to pay.

I feel lucky. I feel like I’ve been given a second chance, and I don’t want to waste it. One thing I know for sure is that I don’t want to spend almost all of my waking hours stressing out about work. Not anymore.

I’m thankful for everything my job has given me over the years, and every single opportunity that’s come my way as a result of it, either directly or indirectly. I’m thankful for the connections I’ve made through it -- most especially meeting Adam after I moved to New York, and getting to know Brian after he started working on our marketing campaigns, then Justin by extension -- and I’m thankful that my job has made it possible for my family and I to live comfortably over the years. And even though it was harder than I would have liked for it to be to get the time off I needed for my recovery, I’m still grateful to have a job that offers paid medical leave, so my family and I won’t have to wonder how we’re going to make ends meet. But I’m thinking it might be time for a change.

My job gave me my life back many years ago, but now it’s time for me to take my life back from my job, which has consumed far more of my time and energy than I want to admit over the past several months. I can’t turn back the clock and change what’s in the past, but I can change what happens from here on out, and that’s why I’m meeting Brian for lunch today at our favorite cafe.

“Ah, looking a little less like Frankenstein every time I see you.” I hear Brian’s voice from behind me as he comes into the cafe, and I know he’s talking about the scar on the back of my neck, which, from the way he’s talked about it, sounds a whole lot worse than it actually is. But that's Brian -- vain to the core, and I'm pretty sure he always will be. “Sorry I'm late,” he says. “Conference call ran long. Anyway, how are you? Do you feel like you've broken out of prison?”

I laugh, because I kind of do. I haven't really been out of the house, save for doctor's appointments, very much at all in the last month, and I haven't left Brooklyn at all until now. Although it's been nice to just rest and spend time with Adam and the girls, I'm ready to re-enter the world. My recovery is going well, and I'm scheduled to start physical therapy next week to resolve any lingering weakness, so I can finally put this whole thing behind me.

“I'm fine,” I answer him. “Couldn't be better. I do have a question for you though.”

“Don't tell me you've finally decided to ask me for some fashion advice.” Brian smirks and looks me up and down, at my sensible plaid button-up shirt and khakis.

“What's wrong with the way I dress?” I say, pretending to be offended.

“How long do you have, and how much detail would you like me to go into?”

I roll my eyes and shake my head, thankful I can do that now without pain. “That's not what I wanted to ask you.”

“Okay, what then? Sex advice? Because I'm not really sure that's good lunchtime conversation. At least, not in public.”

I laugh and I think about how much I missed these lunches with Brian, and how thankful I am that he and I crossed paths. He's become a really good friend, particularly in the last couple of years. “I wanted to ask you if you were serious when you said you wanted me to come work for you.”

Brian just looks at me for a moment and cocks his head slightly to the side, studying me, a confused look on his face. “Don't tell me they fired you. I really will help you sue their asses. You'll own that damn company when I get through with them.”

“No, no… it's not that. I just…” I take a deep breath and let it out slowly, already feeling the full weight of what I'm about to say. “I think I'm ready to move on to something else. So if your offer still stands…”

I halfway expect Brian to make a joke, but he doesn't. He just nods at me and says, “Absolutely. I'd love to have you at Kinnetik. And I have to say your timing is perfect, because there's this company I have an investment in…”

He tells me all about what's been going on at GoodLife Robotics, namely that they've been looking for some serious investors to help them step up to the next level, and Brian has been thinking about getting more involved, but any more significant investment from him would give him a controlling interest in the company. He's fine with laying out the money, but he's the first to admit he doesn't know a whole lot about what they do. Me, on the other hand… let's just say it's exactly what I've been doing for the past 23 years.

“So, if you'd like to head up this project, I'll call Ted when I get back to the office and tell him to make it happen.” He smiles, and I can see that mischievous twinkle in his eye that he gets when he's really excited about something.

And I have to admit, I'm excited, too 

I stick my hand out across the table, and we shake on it, exactly the way we have for all of the business deals we've made over the years between his company and mine. But this one is different -- this one represents a new beginning. Both of us on the same side of the table from now on, working together.

I put in my two weeks’ notice the day I return to the office, and to say everyone is surprised would be the understatement of the century. But they all wish me well -- some sincerely and some begrudgingly -- and I work my two 40-hour weeks and then pack up my office and go home, relieved to know that I will never have to bust my ass for someone who doesn't really appreciate my efforts ever again. I'm starting off at the top at Kinnetik, and the only person over me will be Brian, who has already promised me full control over my schedule as well as access to anything else I need so that my health and my sanity always take precedence over business.

I know he's learned that lesson too -- the hard way.

I take a week off in between my last day at my old job and my first day at Kinnetik, and I devote that time to my family -- making up for lost time, I suppose. We spend most of that week playing tourist in New York -- taking a tour of Central Park, seeing “Wicked” on Broadway, spending a day at Coney Island, and checking out the New York Aquarium, among other things. I find myself savoring every moment I have with my husband and our children, with an appreciation I’m not sure I had before.

I love seeing the smiles on the girls’ faces -- the wonder in their eyes, and the innocence. They’re both getting older, and I wish there was something I could do to slow time down just so I’d have more time to appreciate them while they’re still young, but I know I can’t. That’s why I have to be sure I make the most of my time, and prioritize the right things.

It’s also nice to be able to spend as much time as I want just sitting with Adam, our arms around each other in one small part of the physical manifestation of the love we have for each other -- the love and the life we’ve spent fifteen years building. I’m not sure I’ve ever been more grateful to have him by my side, and this experience, while not exactly one I’d like to repeat, has brought us much closer.

I finally make it back to yoga, too -- another thing I need for my health and sanity -- and I realize that although I lost my practice for awhile, which definitely wasn't the best thing I could have done for myself, I'm pretty sure that in the end, my time away has made my practice even deeper and more meaningful. Much like the rest of my life, I suppose.

I thought I had a good handle on life before. I felt like I appreciated everything I had, and I prided myself on being able to keep a pretty positive outlook. But one thing this experience has shown me is that I also had a lot of things I took for granted, and I’ve made a promise to myself that I’m not going to do that again. I’m taking my second chance and running with it.

And that’s exactly what I plan to do at Kinnetik as well.

It feels strange to come out of the subway and go left instead of right, but at the same time, it feels like I’m turning the page. This is a new beginning for me -- a fresh start. Maybe this is my mid-life crisis. And if it is, I’ll take it, because I really feel like I’ve come out on top. (And maybe I’ll buy myself a convertible later, just as a reward for making it through.)

I say hello to the receptionist at the desk in the lobby of the building that houses my new office, and I’m already looking forward to getting to know her, along with all of my new coworkers. When I get up to the seventh floor, part of which Brian has leased to become the new space for GoodLife Robotics -- soon to be called Kinnected -- I turn the corner to go into my new office, and I find Brian sitting by my new desk.

“Welcome to the company,” he says, at first with a handshake, which he uses to pull me into a hug.

He already has me set up with a new laptop -- because he knows I’ll want to be mobile, so I can try to figure people out while I work, he says with a smirk -- and I’ve got my own electric tea kettle and a stash of at least a dozen different flavors of tea. No more going down the hall to the break room, because I’ve got it all right here. And that extends to more than just the tea. As I look around the room, at the designer furniture that I know Brian likely picked out by hand, and at my friend, who is looking at me with raised eyebrows and his lips pulled into his mouth, like he’s waiting to find out what I think, I realize that I truly do have it all.

Today is the first day of the rest of my life.

Here’s to the happy ending.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who has been reading this story for giving me a chance to indulge my love for this original character from "Familiarity." I appreciate your kudos and your comments!


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